Dungeon Crawl (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 8)

by Annie Bellet

  “I’m a sorceress,” I said. “I thought you knew that.”

  “I thought that was a myth,” he said. His greenish-black tongue darted out over his lips again.

  “Nope,” I said, stopping just short of his feet. He had nowhere to go now, his back against the shelves.

  “You could help me,” he said, his eyes still lit with inner madness. “Help me raise her.”

  “Say what?” I said. “Raise who?”

  “Lilith,” he said as though that explained it.

  One of Tess’s memories swam up in my head. “Mother of demons, Lilith?” I guessed.

  “Mother of vampires,” the necromancer said. “She’s the only one who can make a new vampire. If we raise her, we can live forever!”

  It seemed cruel to tell an old, injured man, necromancer or no, that one of us was already going to live forever. Though with my lifestyle, I wasn’t entirely sure that would truly happen.

  “As a vampire? No thanks,” I said.

  He spat to one side. “The young always think they’ll live forever anyway,” he said with disgust.

  “I’m almost fifty,” I pointed out. “Not that young.” By human standards. I left that part out.

  He looked up at me, skepticism writ large on his pale face. He really didn’t know much about sorcerers. His watery grey eyes flicked toward the shelf beside him. I followed his glance but saw only a double stack of books.

  “I could teach you so much,” he tried again. His hand inched toward the shelf.

  “Whatever is there won’t help you,” I said. I was going to have to kill him. I saw that now, but that didn’t make it easier.

  First I had decide if I was going to eat his heart. I didn’t want to. But he knew things about vampires that I might find useful if I’d gone and made enemies with one, or potentially two of them. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be a necromancer. This kind of magic didn’t just smell awful, it felt wrong. Corrupted. Ishimaru had used the right word.

  “You’ve read all these books?” I asked, stalling for more time.

  Another shout rang down the hall and I turned my head for just a second.

  The necromancer pulled the gun out from between the stacks of books as I turned my head back.

  I dove at him, magic coming to my hands as I jammed my palm over the muzzle of the small revolver. I wrapped power around the gun even as he pulled the trigger. The bullet locked into the cylinder and the gun recoiled out of his hand as it failed to fire.

  Forming violet claws around my right hand, I plunged them into the old man’s chest. He screamed, greenish spittle misting my face as I crushed bone to get to his heart. I ripped it out and he collapsed onto the floor beneath me. Kneeling over him, I held his heart, my magic swirling around it, keeping it beating.

  His heart was the same greenish-black as his tongue had been.

  All the knowledge in this room was here, in my hand. A lifetime of studying. Knowledge of vampires and who knew what else.

  The temptation to just crush the heart and leave was strong. I could read these books, gain the knowledge that way, but I knew even as I thought it that there was zero chance that Noah would let this place stand once the necromancer was gone. He’d take the books or destroy them. He was the Archivist, after all.

  I knew my decision. I’d known it all along, but had to spend the moments trying to talk myself out of it. The knowledge and power in this heart might save my life and the lives of people I loved someday.

  I bit into it. It tasted worse than it looked. I made myself swallow the heart along with the bile that rose as soon as the bitter, rotting flesh hit my tongue. The stomach acid marginally improved the flavor, that’s how awful it was.

  The necromancer was dead. I rose to my feet and dropped the remains of his heart onto his body. Greasy magic burst in my chest as the transfer of power took hold of me, but I stayed upright through sheer will. I called to Wolf in my mind and she was there, herding the new power into the silver circle in my head where I’d corralled all the memories from the people I’d killed and hearts I had taken. Tess. Haruki. Barnes. Now… Robert Loughlin. The necromancer had a name, of course. He’d had a life. I’d look at it later. Much, much later.

  I touched my talisman, feeling the warm, hard bump of Samir’s heart stone there, still embedded in the one spot on the die.

  With the necromancer’s knowledge and power safely shut away, I looked around the room. So many books. I reached for my magic again. It was sluggish in responding, my body bone-weary even with the influx of fresh power from the necromancer.

  “Jade?” Alek appeared in the hall entrance.

  I walked across the room toward him. “Everyone okay?”

  “The ghouls stopped moving. Harper killed one. Levi was bitten but he shifted. He will be fine,” Alek said quickly, seeing my expression. “It is over?”

  “It is over,” I said. I was glad he hadn’t seen what I had done, though I knew I would tell him. Knowing Alek, he guessed.

  He confirmed as much as he reached out and brushed his thumb against my lips, wiping away greenish blood.

  I used my already dirty teeshirt as a napkin and wiped my face.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Your breath is awful,” Alek said with a slight smile.

  Harper appeared behind him with an over-sized coyote and wolverine in tow.

  “Here,” she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of gum.

  “Gum?” I took it, unwrapping it and popping it into my mouth. Cinnamon. It would have to do.

  “Gamer’s motto,” she said with a grin. “Be prepared.”

  “That’s the Boy Scout motto,” I said, chewing. The gum was helping get rid of the rotting flesh and trash taste.

  “We should go,” Alek said.

  I nodded. “I’ll meet you at the ladder. I have to clean up down here.” I motioned to the books. “Can’t leave this for anyone to find.”

  “Here,” Harper said, holding out the Alpha and Omega. It was back in dagger form.

  I took it and slid it into its sheath, relieved to have it back.

  “Yell when you get through the coffin room,” I told them.

  Alek called out a minute or so later and I pulled on my magic. Fire sang in my blood as I channeled beams of flame up into the bookshelves. I felt like I was committing a worse crime than murder, but it had to be done.

  When the smoke grew too thick for me to see, I backed out of the room and jogged down the hall. Smoke followed me, hungry for an outlet.

  I torched the coffin room as well after picking my way over the inert bodies of the dead zombies and ghouls. Better safe than sorry. That done, I summoned what I could of my remaining energy and tried to ignore the deep ache in my ribs as I jogged down the halls to rejoin my companions.

  The dungeon was cleared. I wished I could feel triumph or accomplishment, but I felt only exhaustion and a hollow grief of a sort I had no name for. I knew only that there would be a price for my actions. There always was.

  “Not today,” I told myself. We were safe. For now.

  Ezee and Levi both had to shift to get up the ladder. Levi’s right arm was a mess of crushed bone that oozed fresh blood. Ezee wasn’t as bad off, a couple deep gouges in his leg and side. At least he didn’t start bleeding again as he let Alek lift him up to the ladder’s bottom rungs.

  “Levi, you okay?” I said, wincing at the sight of his wounds. Junebug was going to kill me.

  “Flesh wound,” he said with a forced grin. His piercings glinted in the dim light. “I can climb with one arm, I think.”

  He proved it by scrambling up the ladder after jumping and catching it with his left arm.

  “Show off,” Harper muttered, rolling her eyes. She went up next.

  Alek lifted me up and climbed behind me. I was running on fumes by then, but told myself that if Levi could climb with one arm, I could manage with two, no matter how leaden my muscles felt.

  It was dark
as I emerged. Levi and Ezee had shifted back to their animal forms. Levi’s wolverine had a distinct limp, but at least this way he wasn’t bleeding anymore. Harper had the flashlight on her and clicked it on, leading the way back to where we’d left the car.

  “I’ll drive,” she offered as we rounded the house. “Levi already gave me the keys.”

  I just nodded, though she couldn’t see it.

  We walked down the driveway and Harper jerked to a halt right in front of me. Ezee and Levi fanned out to the sides, teeth bared. I looked up from where I’d been putting one foot in front of the other.

  A dark SUV was parked behind our vehicle. A tall man in a suit stood by the passenger door on the driver’s side. He was holding an electric lamp as though he’d been born to be a lamppost.

  Noah Grey climbed out of the vehicle and waited in that pool of light for us to approach.

  “Get behind me,” I told my friends.

  “I told you to leave this alone,” the Archivist said as I walked forward to meet him.

  “You know me better than that,” I said, hoping he didn’t know me too well.

  “You had the jar,” he said. “You lied to me.”

  “You lied to me first,” I said. It had sounded less petulant-child-like in my head. “I didn’t know what was in that jar. You would have done the same thing. I thought the heart might be some poor sorcerer stuck in there. Until I knew, I couldn’t hand it over. The vampire is free now, by the way, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “He is free?” Noah looked thoughtful, his air of anger fading. “You should not have lied to me.”

  “You should have told me what I was up against before it tried to kill me. You should also have told me that you’d sent in armed men and failed, badly. Thanks for that, by the way. I really enjoyed all those extra zombies we had to fight.”

  “Where is the warlock?” Noah said. His eyes glinted like a beetle’s carapace in the soft lamp light.

  “Necromancer,” I said. He flinched slightly at the word, the second time I’d ever seen an involuntary motion from a vampire. I was going to have to start a bingo card. “You mean that, and I quote, one you ‘took care of?’”

  “Jade Crow,” he said, his voice an impatient hiss. Noah didn’t seem to appreciate my excellent memory. Or maybe it was just that I was throwing his own lies in his face.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “How did he die?”

  I’d known that question was coming. My exhaustion was a boon here as my heart was too weary to get excited and start leaping around. I had no adrenaline left.

  “He tried to shoot me,” I said, sticking close to the truth. “I crushed him with magic.” Technically not a lie. One very slender technicality.

  Noah peered at me, his lips flattening into a tight line before peeling back and revealing his fangs.

  “Crushed him?” he repeated.

  “I’m not stupid, Noah,” I said. I channeled my tired frustration into my tone. “There’s no more necromancer. I burned his books, so that knowledge is gone to ash where it belongs. Go and check yourself, I don’t care. But first move your damn car, because we’re hurt, we’re tired, and we’re going the fuck home.”

  He stared at me a moment longer and then nodded slowly. He gestured to the lamp post guy to move aside and then he got back in. The SUV moved back, pulling to the side of the driveway and leaving us enough room to turn around and leave.

  Harper unlocked Levi’s car and Alek opened the doors but we quickly realized the twins weren’t going to fit if they were both shifted. Shifter coyotes are the size of a German Shepherd, and shifter wolverines are closer to a Saint Bernard. Ezee shifted.

  “I’m less hurt,” he said as Levi stared up at him with a huff.

  Levi didn’t argue, probably because he couldn’t speak in this form, and jumped into the vehicle.

  Alek went around to the passenger seat but stood alert instead of getting in.

  I looked back at the vampire’s vehicle. Noah had unrolled the window and leaned slightly out. I walked a couple steps closer and folded my arms across my aching chest.

  “We will check the house and grounds,” the Archivist said. “If it is not as you say…” he trailed off, the threat implied.

  “Knock yourself out,” I said. I turned my back on him, ignoring the itch of danger between my shoulder blades.

  “Good night, Jade Crow,” the Archivist called after me. “I will see you again.”

  I spun back. I was sick of vampires and games.

  “How about not?” I said. “I’m declaring Wylde a vampire-free zone starting now. If I need you, I know where you live.” I didn’t mean that last to sound quite as ominous as it came out, but I left it hanging in the air between us as I turned again and stalked to the car.

  I slammed the door shut and did not look at the Archivist again as Harper turned the car on, pulled a three-point turn, and sped away into the darkness.

  “Call to warn me if Junebug loses her peacenik ways and goes on the war path when she sees you,” I told Levi and Ezee as they left us at my place.

  Harper went with them, still acting as driver.

  I let Alek carry me up into our apartment. We managed to get shoes and clothes off and he talked me into a shower before we collapsed on the bed, too tired to do more than curl up together. Too tired to talk, and for once I was grateful.

  I didn’t dream. It was daylight when I awoke, pulled on sweats and a teeshirt, and stumbled out to the sizzling smell of bacon. The clock said it was ten in the morning.

  Alek stood in the kitchen room without a stitch of clothing under the apron he was wearing.

  “It’s good to be alive,” I said, settling down at the table and admiring the view.

  “Lara called while you were still asleep,” he said, dropping bacon onto my plate. “She opened the shop, but she has to be gone by noon. I told her I would wake you before then.”

  Right. Shop. Business. Normal life.

  I ate, put on real clothes, braided my hair after swearing over the tangles in it for a good solid twenty minutes, and headed down to my store.

  Harper was there, parked in her spot with her laptop on her lap. She smiled up at me as I walked by.

  Lara was behind the counter. It was Monday morning, so there wasn’t anyone else in. Mondays were usually dead around the store. I was happy about that.

  The window was covered in duct tape and a blue tarp. Very attractive. I sighed.

  “Harper said a ghoul did that,” Lara said. She sounded far too perky about it. “I missed all the fun.”

  “Fun, right.” I looked at her like she was crazy.

  “I called the contractor. He said he still has the specs for it and can get a replacement out by Wednesday,” Lara continued, undaunted by my critical gaze.

  “Careful, or Jade will make you employee of the month,” Harper said.

  I turned my glare on her and found her equally unimpressed.

  “I’m already employee of the month,” Lara said as she shouldered her backpack.

  “You’re the only employee,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she said with a grin. “I’ll see you both tomorrow. Glad you are alive and all, by the way.”

  She left the store. When the tinkling of the bells hanging on the door quieted, Harper set aside her laptop and came over to where I stood.

  “Thank you,” she said, her green eyes searching my face.

  I didn’t know what she was hoping to see.

  “For what?”

  “Trusting us to help you,” she said with a shrug.

  I put my hands on her shoulders as something in my chest tightened and twisted.

  “I’m trying,” I said.

  Harper wrapped her arms around me, yanking me into a hug I gladly returned.

  “It’s good to be home,” she said into my shoulder.

  “Sorry about the zombies,” I said, chuckling.

  “There are worse things in the world,
” she said. Her tone made me push her back so I could see her face.

  “What happened to you while you were gone?” I asked her.

  She shrugged again, the movement deliberately casual. Her gaze was hard to meet. There was so much sadness in it that my heart started to break again.

  “I can try to tell you about it,” she said. “But not today, okay? I get it though. How you tried to run from evil all those years, but it just kept coming anyway.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I wouldn’t push her if she wasn’t ready to talk. “Evil does that.”

  “Want to see a cool new trick I learned with Disruptors?” she said, breaking the tense air between us.

  “You’re playing Protoss?” I said, shocked.

  “Practicing off-race, just for variety. Don’t worry, my heart is pure Zerg.” Harper grinned.

  I let her change the subject and went happily to get my nerd on with my best friend. She was right. It was good to be home.

  Junebug called and had some choice words for me, but the conversation ended with us chuckling over what a brat Levi was when he was healing, so that was okay. Ezee called to say he was fine. Everyone was healing but safe. No more zombies. No more Nazis or strange shifters trying to shoot us. My shop would be repaired by end of week. All was turning up roses for the most part.

  Late Monday night I lay in bed, tired but unable to sleep. I had touched Samir’s heart stone to the Alpha and Omega to make sure it stayed dormant, but I kept rubbing it with my thumb.

  “Talk,” Alek said, rolling over and pulling me against his chest.

  I sighed. He did know me way too well.

  “I ate his heart,” I said. Saying aloud felt strangely freeing.

  “I know,” Alek said. “And?”

  “I didn’t have to. He wasn’t a sorcerer. I could have just killed him.” I snuggled into Alek’s warm chest, breathing in his vanilla and musk scent. My D20 was still clutched in my hand, my thumb on the heartstone.

  “But you did,” Alek said, his voice a rumble in his chest, vibrating slightly against my cheek.

  “I don’t trust the Archivist,” I said. “I know he helped me before, but who knows what his real motivation for that was about? There’s so much I don’t know. About vampires. About magic. I hope I never have to use the knowledge, but it is better to have and not need than be killed later cause I was unprepared, right?”